WaPo wonders: Say, where’s Hillary these days?

posted at 9:21 am on October 10, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Good question. After all, the State Department actually conducted the dog-and-pony show on behalf of the White House after the terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate that left four Americans dead, including the first US Ambassador assassinated on assignment in 33 years. Hillary Clinton’s UN envoy Susan Rice went on five Sunday talk shows to propagate a cover story that Hillary Clinton’s own organization announced last night it never believed.

So where is the Secretary of State these days, anyway?

The fatal attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya last month has become a test of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s leadership and a threat to her much-admired legacy as America’s top diplomat just a few months before she plans to step down.

Clinton was among the first Obama administration officials to publicly condemn the attack and mourn the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But as the State Department has weathered Republican-led criticism that it misread warning signs before the Sept. 11 attack, Clinton has been far less visible. …

Clinton briefed members of Congress privately days after the attack and has called individual members frequently. She spoke to Issa on Monday, another senior State Department official said.

“They did not ask, and there was no serious discussion at this point that she would testify,” the official said.

Clinton has made no public mention of the attack or investigation since Oct. 3. She has no public speaking events on her schedule this week. A trusted Clinton confidant who is the chief protector of her image is reviewing all media inquiries related to the attack.

Issa isn’t asking yet, but eventually the Secretary of State will have to answer — or answer for — serious questions that have arisen in the wake of the Obama administration’s narrative collapse on Benghazi. First, the State Department will have to reveal who told Susan Rice to go out and lie on national television about the nature of the attack. Either Rice did that willingly or unwittingly, but she clearly wasn’t being briefed by the State Department before those television appearances, as State now says they never believed that there were protests at the consulate before the attack. Did her superior at State — who can only be Hillary — tell her to use that story? Or did Rice take her marching orders from the White House itself? If so, who, and under what understanding: that the story was true, or that it was false?

Next, and more importantly, come questions of security precautions at a consulate already under attack and located in Islamist Terrorism Central since the fall of Qaddafi. Hillary is ultimately responsible for that, too. Who told Benghazi and Ambassador Stevens to stop asking for more security, and who told that person to tell Stevens that? That buck either stops with Hillary or with Barack Obama himself.

Under these circumstances in earlier and more honorable times, both Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice would have already resigned their posts. That’s especially true in Rice’s case, who got caught pushing a lie that tried to cover up the fact that the US suffered a terrorist attack. Either the lie is hers, in which case resignation is the only possible step, or someone lied to her and used her to push it out to the public, in which case a person of her rank should resign immediately in protest and reveal what happened. The fact that Rice has not resigned as of yet tells us that the latter was not the case, and also tells us all we need to know about her integrity. As for Hillary Clinton, her “legacy” is about to get defined — unless she starts talking about who ordered the cover-up. If not, then we probably know all we need to know about her integrity and legacy as well.

Update: I know we’ve posted this Heritage video before, but it’s worth watching again in light of what the State Department announced last night and Hillary’s disappearance in the last few days.

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